PCM Inc., an El Segundo company that sells information technology products and services, has attracted little attention in more than a quarter-century of business. But that soon may change. The owner of a competing company has starting snapping up PCM's stock, raising speculation of a possible takeover. Firoz Lalji, chairman of technology company Zones Inc. in Auburn, Wash., now owns about 5% of PCM, according to a regulatory filing. And he called PCM "one of the poorest-performing companies in its industry.

Intel Corp. said it will close its Singapore plant to move manufacturing closer to its customers. About 300 workers will lose their jobs, the Santa Clara, Calif., computer chip maker said. Intel said it hopes to cut costs by moving the manufacturing of circuit boards and systems built at the plant to Oregon and Ireland, where the products will be closer to the companies that purchase them. Intel has 24,000 employees worldwide.

Like most kids growing up in Brazil, Roberto Gurgel dreamed of being on the field for a World Cup. That never happened. So this summer, Gurgel is settling for the next-best thing by helping to build five of the fields that will be used for the first World Cup in his native country in 64 years. Gurgel is executive director of research for Sod Solutions, a South Carolina-based company that develops and licenses varieties of grass. One of those varieties, a deep blue-green Bermuda called Celebration, will be used in five of the 12 World Cup venues this summer.

WASHINGTON Nine companies are recalling about 2 million bottles and jugs of the gel fuel used in outdoor patio decorations known as firepots because of the risk of serious burns. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the gel fuel has been linked to several dozen cases in which people were burned when they couldn't tell whether the flame was out. Pouring more gel on a burning pot can lead to dangerous flares or burns. The companies are: Bird Brain Inc. of Ypsilanti, Mich.; Bond Manufacturing of Antioch, Calif.; Sunjel Company of Milwaukee; Fuel Barons Inc. of Lake Tahoe, Nev.; Lamplight Farms Inc. of Menomonee Falls, Wis.; Luminosities Inc. of St. Paul, Minn.; Pacific Decor Ltd. of Woodinville, Wash.; Real Flame of Racine, Wis.; Smart Solar USA of Oldsmar, Fla. The commission says Marshall Group of Elkhart, Ind., pulled out of the public announcement at the last minute.

NEW YORK -- The economy may be improving, but many U.S. companies are still hanging on to record amounts of cash, something they usually do in times of economic turmoil. U.S. companies held $1.45 trillion in cash in 2012, up 10% from the $1.32 trillion they held in 2011 -- which at that time was a record level, according to a new report from Moody's Investors Service. Apple is sitting on $137 billion in cash, a fact not lost on investors, who have sued in an effort to get Apple to give some of that cash to shareholders.

ATLANTA — Many American companies that had adopted a much-vaunted employee evaluation system have lately been turning away from it. Known as "stacked ranking" or "forced ranking," the process made famous by General Electric Co. is really just a version of what teachers call grading on the curve: a few people at the top, a few at the bottom and the rest clumped in the middle. The practice leaped into the spotlight — at least for people who study how companies perform — when Vanity Fair published in its August issue a profile of technology icon Microsoft Corp.

An Arizona business group will fly 100 California chief executives to Arizona to try to entice their companies to leave the Golden State for the Grand Canyon State. ALSO: Photo gallery: Ted Rall cartoons Latinos need immigration reform, not crumbs Should Obama care what House Republicans think of Susan Rice? Follow Ted Rall on Twitter @TedRall

American companies are ready to write bigger checks for business travel this year. The Global Business Travel Assn. is expecting companies to spend $266.7 billion in 2013. That's a 4.6% increase over last year, when the “fiscal cliff” and Superstorm Sandy put a crimp in travel. Still, the group predicted that companies will trim back 1.1% on the number of trips. The rise in spending and the drop in trips means more travelers will stay longer, perhaps scheduling more meetings per outing, said Rebecca Carriero, a spokeswoman for the trade group representing business travel managers.

The energy industry scored a big win Tuesday when a federal judge tossed out a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that required oil and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments. Deeming the regulation arbitrary and capricious, U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington noted that the SEC failed to include exemptions in cases in which foreign governments explicitly ban public disclosures, according to Fuel Fix, a website reporting the industry. The regulation was issued under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, intended to bring financial reforms following the Great Recession.

In their largest demonstration yet, truck drivers who haul cargo in and out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will go on a limited strike Monday to protest what they contend are widespread workplace violations. The truck drivers, from some of the region's largest trucking companies, have accused the companies of illegally misclassifying them as independent contractors instead of as employees. That misclassification results in lower wages and denies them protections that employees get under state and federal labor laws, they contend.

BEIJING - DMG Entertainment, the Beijing-based company that co-produced Hollywood films including "Iron Man 3" and "Transcendence," is in the process of going public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The move will see DMG enter the exchange through a reverse takeover with meat-processing company Sichuan Gaojin Foods. The deal still needs regulatory approval. According to DMG and Sichuan Gaojin, the deal values DMG at $970 million. That's three times the value of Gaojin at the end of 2013.

Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of Hawthorne rocket maker SpaceX, hastily called a news conference Friday in Washington, D.C., where he outlined an array of matters confronting his upstart company. A cryptic email was sent to media around 9 p.m. Pacific time Thursday that said he would "make an important SpaceX announcement" the next day at the National Press Club. The big announcement, however, wasn't quite clear. Musk made several revelations during the half-hour event. First, he provided an update on SpaceX's goal of creating the world's first fully reusable rocket - the holy grail in rocketry.

Zynga's Mark Pincus will no longer be involved with the day-to-day operations at the company he co-founded seven years ago. The announcement came Wednesday morning along with the company's results for the first quarter . Pincus led Zynga to fame and Facebook success years ago with the release of numerous social games that gained wide followings, including "FarmVille," "Words With Friends," "CityVille" and several others. But in...

WASHINGTON - Netflix Inc. and other Internet companies may soon be able to pay for a faster road online for streaming movies and other content into customers' homes, raising concerns about who ultimately may end up with the bill. The nation's top telecommunications regulator, breaking with his agency's long-standing position, will propose new rules that would allow broadband network owners to sell a high-speed toll road for content providers, the Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - Confronting a case that could reshape the television broadcast industry, Supreme Court justices sounded conflicted Tuesday over whether an upstart streaming service is violating copyright laws by enabling subscribers to record programs captured over the air and view them later on the Internet. The court's ruling, due by June, could either shut down New York-based Aereo or clear the way for the growing company to continue providing subscribers with a convenient, low-cost way to watch local broadcast channels without paying for cable or satellite service or putting an antenna on a roof.

The beleaguered operator of a Vernon battery-recycling plant announced the temporary layoffs of nearly all of its employees Monday, weeks after air-quality regulators shut down its operations over air pollution concerns. Exide Technologies said in a statement that it had issued notices to 104 hourly employees and 20 managers at the facility that they could be laid off within 60 days. The plant, which has been a source of community outrage since regulators announced last year that its arsenic emissions posed a danger to more than 100,000 people, has been idle since last month.

Dancer-choreographer Danielle Agami, artistic director of Ate9 Dance Company, dislikes voice mail, cameras and mirrors. Indeed, for someone whose career is so body-centric, the mirror has been noticeably absent in her dance practice for more than a decade. But Israeli-born Agami, 29, has never been one to hew to tradition. When her eight-member troupe premieres her latest full-evening work, "Mouth to Mouth," at Los Angeles Theatre Center April 26 and May 3, expect a supremely idiosyncratic performance.